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Minister of Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani, has stated in her answer in the Rajya Sabha that there is no information regarding data on increase in cases of child abuse due to the Covid-19 related lockdown situations.
In addition to this, the Minister said that according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the Centre also has no data on the increase in child marriage cases across the country due to financial difficulties owing to Covid-19.
The Minister was also posed questions pertaining to the number of complaints registered with the Commission for Protection of Child Rights both at Centre and State level or suo moto taken up and inquiry completed during the last five years.
In her written answer dated July 22, Ms. Irani provided that the total number of complaints received by the Commission from 2016 to 2021 was 50,857. Out of these complaints, the Commission has managed to dispose of only 20,836 cases.
Among all States, the highest number of complaints have been received from Madhya Pradesh at 9,572 followed by Uttar Pradesh at 5,340, Chhattisgarh at 4,685 and Odisha at 4,276. Over the past 5 years, Bihar has also received a high number of complaints at 2,032, along with Gujarat at 1,663, Delhi at 1,730 and Jharkhand at 3,205.
Ladakh has recorded no cases. Lakshadweep has received 3 complaints and three have been disposed of. Kerala recorded the highest number of cases either registered by the Commission or taken up suo motu at a whopping 10,723. This was followed by Delhi at 9,897 cases and Tamil Nadu at 3,046. The Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has provided data from 2018 to 2021, which states that the number of cases registered by the commission suo motu stood at 2,134.
On July 19, the Minister of Education had answered questions about how online education has been disrupted due to the Covid-19 lockdown. Bihar has suffered the worst in this category with 1,43,36,007 children without digital devices to access online education, followed by Jharkhand with 32,52,255 children deprived of an education due to the digital divide, and Karnataka with 31,31,098 students.
The answers may be read here:
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